The crisis seen from a left perspective

Main Menu

Flow unchanged, but more people are dying. Why?

Lately, if one happens to watch/listen/read the media, one may be led to believe that an unprecedented wave of refugees and migrants is crossing the Central Mediterranean irregularly.

Well, this is not the case.

The truth is that, despite the de facto closure of the Aegean route since the end of March 2016, to date far more people have arrived in Greece (156,574) than in Italy.

The situation doesn’t change if we compare the arrivals in Italy in the first five months of 2016 with the same period in 2015. Between January and May 2016, Italy received 47810 people. 347 people more than last year when the arrivals in Italy were 47463. Yes, an increase but only marginal (0.8 per cent).

No doubt the situation is dramatic, but why inflating the ‘crisis’? Whose interests or agendas does it serve? Noteworthy, these calls are coming from subjects located across a broad political spectrum: anti-EU politicians…